


Stay with me

by fromthedeskoftheraven



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Battle of Five Armies Fix-It, Durins live, F/M, Near Death Experiences, Thranduil saves the day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 13:38:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8163860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromthedeskoftheraven/pseuds/fromthedeskoftheraven
Summary: An elf-maid pleads with Thranduil to save the Durins as they cling to life after the Battle of the Five Armies





	

Cautiously, wary of stray orcs that might yet be lurking in the depths of Ravenhill’s tunnels, you ventured onto the ice at the tower’s base. 

A lone figure lay close at hand, and as you edged nearer, casting a glance across the frozen river to where a handful of your comrades searched the rocky terrain for casualties of the battle, it was quickly apparent that the body was not that of an elf. He was smaller, stocky and powerfully built, wearing a heavy leather coat rather than gleaming armor, and a mane of golden hair framed a handsome, bearded face with eyes as blue as the sky they no longer saw. 

The dwarf’s rugged beauty stirred a strange rush of pity in your heart and you sheathed your sword to sink to your knees beside him, feeling yourself unsettled by a deep sympathy for this poor, lost soul who had been your enemy only hours before. His lifeless face spoke wrenchingly to you of youth, strength, nobility, hopes for the future all cut short at the merciless hands of an orc, judging from his wounds. Carefully, though you could not have told why, you took his broad, gloved hand between your own and held it as if to comfort him before reaching to close his eyes in a futile gesture of compassion.

Your fingertips gently touched his face and you started, as though you’d been stung, instantly withdrawing your hand.

Again, slowly, you placed your hand on the dwarf’s face, this time pressing your palm to the coarse softness of his bearded cheek, and again there was a faint sensation of electricity in your fingers that made your heart leap in response. Hope mingled with helplessness in your racing mind, and as you looked up in desperation to the impassive sky, a small group of dwarves clustered at the the edge of the frozen waterfall caught your eye.

Your feet carried you swiftly to the knot of mourners gathered around the one you recognized as their king, so consumed with grief that they barely reacted to the arrival of an elf-maid among them and stirred only when you approached his body. **  
**

“What do you mean by this? Come to bear tales to Thranduil, have you?” The tallest of the dwarves, a fierce, bald-headed, tattooed warrior, moved to block you, his voice trembling with emotion.

“Please,” you said urgently,“let me look at him. There may yet be help for them.” **  
**

His white-haired companion shook his head tearfully. “I fear there’s no help for him saving that as can be found in the Halls of Mandos, lassie.” **  
**

Still, they allowed you to stoop beside him, to place your hands on him, watching you keenly when your face brightened with hope at that same faint thrum of energy in the dwarf’s body.

“There is life yet in him, though it is weak,” you explained as you rose to your feet, gesturing toward where the golden-haired dwarf lay. “It is the same with the other.In the right hands, it can be strengthened.”

“What about Kili?” A younger dwarf piped up from the back of the group.

The name struck a chord in your mind, and you answered, “the one whom Tauriel followed? Where is he?”

The bald dwarf only pointed grimly to the crumbling summit of Ravenhill. **  
**

“Bring him here,” you instructed, setting your face determinedly toward the valley. “Bring both of the young ones here. I cannot help them, but I know who can.” **  
**

* * *

You burst breathlessly into Thranduil’s richly appointed tent, sighing with relief to find him inside it. 

“ _Aran_ Thranduil, your help is needed.”

The Elvenking sat in his chair in a listless posture, an untasted glass of wine in his hand, and the gaze he turned on you was dazed, its vulnerability giving you pause even in the urgency of your mission.

“My help,” he repeated dully.

“It is the dwarf King and two of his kin…they have been struck down, but their spirits have not yet left them. If you will only come, they can be saved.”

Thranduil set the glass down on the small table beside him and rose to his feet to cross to the tent’s opening, gazing over the desolate valley. “They are mortal,” he said in a hollow voice, “destined to die.”

“Yes, but it need not be today,” you pleaded, your heart twisting at the thought of the noble, golden dwarf lying alone and forsaken on the icy river. “We must hurry if anything is to be done, my lord, _please_.”

“Have I not done enough?” He seemed to waver, as though arguing with himself. “Have I not lost my people, my son…”

Your patience, worn to a thread, snapped, and you blurted out, “ _Aran nin_ , I wonder what vengeance you would have sworn on one who might have saved the Queen and refused.”

He turned on you with shocked eyes, a flash of his former haughtiness crossing his face. “You go too far.”

“For which I shall accept the consequences, but I beg of you, help them.”

Thranduil stared at you for a long, tense moment before looking once more out at the gray landscape. It was so quiet that you heard the breath of his small sigh as he squared his shoulders almost imperceptibly.

“Take me to them.”

* * *

The scene at Ravenhill was one such as you had never imagined: a weary Thranduil unable to repress a melancholy smile when the dwarf King’s eyes fluttered briefly open, his barrel chest expanding with gulped breaths of cold air; the fatherly, white-haired dwarf so overcome with compassion at Tauriel’s joyful weeping beside him that he had clasped her hand in his own, to which she now clung as they followed her Kili away to the infirmary; the surly, bald dwarf gruffly summoning you to bend that he might touch his forehead to yours with the pledge of his service, should you ever require it.

There had been such a flurry of activity around the three figures that you had only snatched glimpses of the awakening of the one the dwarves called Fili. Through the little crowd of his fellows, you saw the fingers of one hand abruptly contract and stretch, and a small moan escaped him when they hoisted him to bear him away to their healers. 

On an impulse you trailed behind the group, following them with tentative steps all the way into the haven of the mountain. Hanging back, unnoticed in the shadows of the small room that acted as a makeshift infirmary, you saw Fili settled in a bed, his groans of pain tearing at your heart as dwarvish and elvish healers combined their efforts to treat his wounds.

You found yourself wiping tears from your cheeks, pausing to look in bewilderment at your wet fingertips. This dwarf was not yours to keep vigil for, just as he had not been yours to mourn…and yet somehow, strangely, his spirit had called to you from the moment you’d laid eyes on him, sure and strong and unyielding as the mountain itself.

Fili subsided at last into a sedated rest, and with a troubled mind you crept away to return to your own people.

* * *

Over those next few days of quiet confusion, when your King glided about like a ghost and duties and protocol fell by the wayside in favor of the simple, everyday tasks of survival, you often made your way to the infirmary. 

Though Fili remained unconscious under the influence of various herbal concoctions, the healers who moved efficiently among their charges were sympathetic to your visits, even as they stole curious glances at you where you stood by his bedside. Word of your role in snatching back Erebor’s royal family from the brink of death had traveled, earning you a measure of goodwill among all but the most stubborn of dwarves, and one robust dwarrowdam with a kind face and a delicate ginger beard offered you a chair and patted your shoulder bracingly as she left you to gaze at Fili’s sleeping face.

You never spoke to him, feeling yourself an intruder, but would merely sit watching the steady rise and fall of his bandaged chest, once venturing shyly to smooth his soft, thick hair away from his forehead in farewell.

One crisp morning, you stepped gratefully into the mountain’s shelter, rubbing your hands together for warmth as you greeted the elvish healer who stood at the door to the infirmary, but you were brought up short by the sight of Fili awake and propped at an angle on pillows while the ginger-bearded healer held a cup to his lips. 

Your heart began to hammer against your ribs, and feeling suddenly foolish and entirely out of place, you edged along the wall toward his bed, just out of reach of the lanterns’ light, willing to content yourself with simply seeing him alert and mending. 

Over the brim of the cup, his eyes met yours in the shadows and he abruptly pushed the healer’s hand away, straining as though to sit up.

The dwarrowdam glanced, confused, in the direction of his gaze before a welcoming smile broke over her face. “Well, now, don’t be shy, dear! I’ve got your chair all ready for you,” she patted its seat invitingly, adding, “he’ll be much better company now he’s awake.”

She set the cup on the bedside table and bustled about visiting her next patient, leaving the two of you alone, and you stepped forward into the glow of the lantern, moving closer to where Fili lay.

“You,” he breathed.

“Hello, Fili,” you smiled nervously, but his wide eyes were fixed intently on you.

“I know you…I saw you,” he said, his voice raspy from disuse.

Confusion furrowed your brow. Had his injuries or his long, medicinal sleep addled him, made him mistake you for someone else?

“I’ve been several times to look in on you–” You offered the feeble but tactful explanation, but he broke in insistently.

“No, not here.”

“Where?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Tell me anyway.”

He hesitated, nearly whispering. “When I was on the ice.”

Your heart seemed to turn over in your chest, and you sank blindly into the chair beside his bed. 

“You were there, but I couldn’t speak to you. I thought perhaps you were one of the Valar,” Fili went on, the shadow of a smile crossing his weary face. “You were so beautiful, and kind, you…you held my hand.”

“Yes,” you nodded, blinking at the tears that stung your eyes with the memory. “Yes, I did.”

“Why did you?” His eyes hungrily searched your face. “You didn’t have to.”

“I don’t know,” you admitted, “I only knew I wished for you to live.”

“I wanted to stay where you were…wherever it was,” he murmured low, yearning. “Come closer?”

You moved the chair to the head of the bed so that you sat directly beside him, looking into his eyes, blue as the deep pools where the sun peeked through Mirkwood’s leafy canopy and nearly stealing your breath with the vibrancy of the life behind them.

He reached gingerly to take a lock of your hair between his fingertips, letting it slide free as his hand dropped again to the blankets that covered him. “So you _are_ real.” A more genuine smile stole over his face, making him even more handsome. “I hardly dared to hope so.”

“Very real,” you nodded, finding his smile infectious, “and very glad to see you awake.”

“I don’t know your name,” he fretted, and when you told him, he repeated it twice, savoring it on his tongue as he found the strength to lift his hand again, tracing his fingertips lightly over your cheek. “Will you stay with me? At least for a little while?” 

His hand was calloused and warm when you took it gently between your own, and you could have laughed for the joy that blossomed within you at the sensation of his fingers curling around yours.

“Don’t worry, Fili,” you smiled, “I’ll stay for as long as you like.”


End file.
